


Flashbacks and Echoes

by loveinslowmotion



Category: One Direction (Band), Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Haylor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25532383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinslowmotion/pseuds/loveinslowmotion
Summary: He was stopped at a red light when her song came on the radio. // She was riding shotgun when his song came on the radio.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Taylor Swift
Comments: 4
Kudos: 68





	Flashbacks and Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> I finished writing this only hours ago. I've been reading '19 Love Songs' by David Levithan and been inspired to write something differently, then 'folklore' came out, then I found myself with my old notebook and favourite pen (the same things I used to write the end of 'Ribbons & Curls') and rediscovered my love of pen on paper and writing freely. I thought about not posting this, since it's essentially just a bit of rambling on, but I like how it turned out. I hope you do too xx

He was stopped at a red light when her song came on the radio.

It happened sometimes. Out of the blue, one of her songs would be next on the announcer’s playlist, or one would come on in a shop, or at a party. Friends would give him the side eye, just to see how he would react. As if hearing one of her songs might trigger some long-buried emotion that would bubble back to the surface in time to her poppy beat. As if it hadn’t been years and years since he had last called her ‘mine’.

Some would switch it off. He had been in a car – this car – once with another girl he had adored, who had a habit of skipping songs until she found just the right one for her current mood. He didn’t think she had changed the radio station on his account.

He had been in Tesco’s when one of her older tracks started playing. There he was, trying to remember whether or not he needed to get some more milk, when he had noticed a little girl turning the aisle into her own personal stage. Her mother had smiled as she danced with the unselfconsciousness of young children, wiggling her hips and sassily shaking her chubby finger as she declared that they were never ever getting back together. He forgot to buy the milk.

There had been a party that he didn’t remember much of. They had all gotten shit-faced, which had been fun at the time, not so much the morning after. It had only been because a friend had thoughtfully filmed it that he was aware that at some point in the night, he had belted out the words to one of her songs. In front of everyone. And there had been cheering.

“I can delete it,” his friend had offered.

“Please,” he’d begged.

It was okay when he was at home and there was no one there to see. At home, he could listen to whatever he wanted, sing along to his heart’s content. At home, it was okay.

He had every single one of her CD’s. He had been listening to her since before he had been lucky enough to know her. When he thought about it, it was sort of strange to have known her through her diary-like lyrics before he had actually _known_ her. He supposed that was how people felt when they met him now.

But you couldn’t truly know someone from purely what they put into their songs.

Music is an art. And like all art, it is not simply black and white. It is not, _this is me, lyrics on paper, and that is all_. There is a difference between baring your heart in a song and having someone know all the little nuances that make up your being.

That line was all too easy to blur.

He felt that, in some way, he still knew her. Maybe it was just an old version of her. One who laughed at his jokes, even when they weren’t all that funny, just because she enjoyed seeing him smile. One who liked the thrill of meeting in secret, where they could be happy without interruption. One who would have given anything just for one more day.

It had been a long time since they had last spoken. He could no longer recall what it had been about.

So it was in her music that he got his glimmer of knowing her. He knew that she was so much more than the words she wrote, that not everything was her own story to tell, and yet now, that was all he had left.

He thought about calling her sometimes. He still had her number saved in his phone, although he knew it was likely no longer hers. Too many times she had had to change her number when it was no longer guaranteed to be private. At some point, he had dropped off her list of people to share her new one with. And still, he never deleted her contact, just in case.

Even if he did work up the nerve to call her, he wouldn’t know what to say. They were not the friends they once were. He could not say the “I miss you” that still traitorously crossed his mind, years after he had lost the right to tell her things like that. It was no longer what she wanted to hear.

All the things he hadn’t gotten the chance to say to her were being said by someone else now.

He wondered what it was like to be in the kind of love that she wrote about now. Once, she had said to never be in the same kind of love twice. Selfishly, he wondered just how different her new love was. If it was something he could’ve given her had their paths crossed at the right time.

Dreaming about it was a fruitless self-indulgence.

As he listened to her sing about three summers of being in love, he remembered what it was like to have her for a fateful winter. One intense, complicated, passionate winter. One winter he could never forget.

As he listened to her sing about longing to share every summer forevermore with her lover, he thought she had let go of their one shared winter, a memory melted by the summer sun.

He turned into a familiar street and he switched the radio off before she had sung her final note.

He still knew every word.

*** * * * ***

She was riding shotgun when his song came on the radio.

It happened sometimes. Out of the blue, one of his songs would be next on the announcer’s playlist, or one would come on in a shop, or at a party. Friends would give her the side eye, just to see how she would react. As if hearing one of his songs might trigger some long-buried emotion that would bubble back to the surface to the rhythm of his dulcet tones. As if it hadn’t been years and years since she had last called him ‘mine’.

Some would switch it off. They thought it might be weird for her to listen to, and in a way, they were right. That did not mean she didn’t enjoy listening to his voice.

She had been in a second hand store when one of his songs started playing. There she was, perusing a basket of old records, when she realised the two shop assistants were not making a big deal of her presence but were actually discussing whether or not it was cool to like him now that he was no longer actively in a boy band.

“This song is actually bloody good,” one of them admitted. She had smiled to herself, privately pleased for him.

There had been a party that she didn’t remember much of. They had all gotten shit-faced, which had been fun at the time, not so much the morning after. It would not have been so bad if it had been one of his old songs that appeared on the playlist – she would not be the first person to drunkenly belt out a boy band track. She would not be the first person to drunkenly sing along to how a girl drove him crazy (but he’s kind of into it), but she could be the first of which who had actually dated him (and may have, at times, driven him crazy). Blessedly, the only evidence was fuzzy memories.

It was okay when she was at home and there was no one there to see. At home, she could listen to whatever she wanted, sing along to her heart’s content. At home, it was okay.

She liked listening to the words he had written. She remembered how he would write when he was younger, but not everything could ever be heard, for it wasn’t just about him then. Now, he was writing for himself. He had a voice that deserved to be heard.

Sometimes, she longed to tell him she was proud of him. The teenager she had met was a young man now, and she understood how hard that journey of self-discovery could be when everyone was watching. She was proud of how far he had come.

It should’ve been an easy thing to say. It was only a few words. “ _I’m proud of you_.” But there was a depth of feeling behind those words that made them impossible to share.

You couldn’t be proud of someone you didn’t care about. And in saying those words, she would be inadvertently telling him that she did still care.

Which was, in a way, true. But how could she say that when it had been so long since they had last spoken that she could no longer recall what it had been about?

She wondered what it would be like to be his friend now. If everything that had happened between them all those years ago could be water under the bridge, and they could be proper friends. For sometimes, she missed talking to him. She missed the sound of his voice, and the dimples beside his smile. She even missed his silly jokes, though she would never tell him that.

Once, she had described him as the one person who might one day come barging in on her white veil occasion, unable to forever hold his peace. Claiming that there were more pages left to their story, that the end of a chapter was not the end of the book.

She couldn’t be friends with him now. It wouldn’t be fair on either of them, or the man she now called ‘mine’. So she never called.

As she listened to him sing about a strawberry lipstick state of mind, she wondered if she ever crossed his mind. Or if her red lipstick kisses had finally wiped clean.

Her lover turned into a familiar street and she gazed out her side window, silently reminiscing.

She adored the man sitting next to her. But she had adored the one singing through the speakers too.


End file.
